Telcosystems

The Netherlands

Telcosystems is a group consisting of Gideon Kiers, David Kiers and Lucas van der Velden. In their audiovisual works, they research the relation between the behavior of programmed numerical logic and the human perception of this behavior, aiming at an integration of human expression and programmed machine behavior. This is manifested in their immersive audio-visual installations, as well as in films, videos, soundtracks, prints and live performances. The software they write enables them to compose ever-evolving audio-visual worlds. Telcosystems’ installations and films focus on real-time, self-structuring, generative processes; in their live performances, they focus on the interaction between these processes. Their work is the result of an ongoing search for its own language of non-referential image and sound, and is characterized by lucid and restrained aesthetics closely related to the technology they use. In their interactions with machines, Telcosystems fuse the auditory and visual domains into one immersive spatial experience that explores the limits of the human sensory apparatus. Their work has been shown at various museums, galleries and festivals. David Kiers (1977, Amsterdam) studied at the Sonology department of the Royal Conservatoire; Lucas van der Velden (1976, Eindhoven) and Gideon Kiers (1975, Amsterdam) studied at the Interfaculty Image and Sound, a department within the Royal Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Machine Visions

2017
Live Cinema Performance

Vision has increasingly become the terrain of machines. Machines are looking and sensing more; they develop rapidly from passive to active and autonomous agents through analysis, interpretation and machine learning. The way we view ourselves and the way we perceive the world is changing under the influence of these developments. Machine Visions is a research project into machine vision and experimental forms of image interpretation and analysis. The source material for this project is a collection of high-resolution digitalized celluloid images of the Earth that was made by the C.I.A.’s secret satellite program in the 1960s. In retrospect, this program paved the way for a revolution in the field of machine vision, which has led to large-scale deployment of self-monitoring technologies such as autonomous drones and self-learning security cameras in the last decade.